“Would you be able to activate it again?” I asked, continuing to focus on the scrolling equations on the viewscreen.
“With Suma’s assistance, I think we could have it operational in an hour’s time,” W said.
An hour. Just enough time to figure out what we were flying into before we arrived at the asteroids. “Suma, can you help W?”
“Of course. Come on, Dubs.” Suma led our android friend away from the bridge, and Slate took over the pilot’s seat.
“Dean, you sure we should be doing this?” Slate glanced at me. The fact that he used my real name told me he was apprehensive of the detour.
“No, I’m not, but we’re Gatekeepers, and we will assist those in need.” Slate nodded along and stuck his fist out for me to bump.
“That’s what we all love about you,” he said, and we sat silently, watching our radar image of the asteroid field.
Almost an hour later, we could make out the shapes and patterns of the rocks. Some were the size of our ship; others were variations of protoplanets, dispersed seemingly randomly in a cluster. The larger would be orbiting the system’s distant star, the smaller tugged along.
“Where’s the message coming from?” Slate asked, and I keyed in the last transmission. It was sending out nearly four times an hour, and we were due for another ping. A short time later, our ship received the message, and I had a lock on the source location.
We were quite a ways out, but at least now we had a slightly better lay of the land. The message was coming from the second largest hunk of rock, and the computer estimated it at a diameter of four hundred kilometers.
“That’s big. What the hell could be living on an asteroid like that?” Slate asked.
“I have no clue, but I guess we’re going to find out.” I zoomed in as much as possible on the viewscreen, and finally, we were able to see the outlines of our target.
“I think I’ll let Dubs pilot us through the thousands of small dangerous clusters, if that’s okay with you,” Slate suggested.
“That’s probably a good idea, even though asteroid fields are mostly open space. Not that I don’t trust your skills as a pilot,” I added, getting a grin from him.
He was about to comment when Suma announced their arrival. W was close behind her, and they were moving quickly.
“The message is old, judging by the program used to issue it, though it’s hard to tell with so many varying races of beings, each in different stages of development. It might be new for the senders, if that makes sense,” Dubs said.
“Sure, makes sense. Can you decipher the data?” I asked. His torso cavity was flipped open, a few wires were wire-nutted together, and Suma was trying to fiddle with them, cleaning up the mess.
“Dubs wouldn’t let me finish before darting towards the hall,” she said.
“I can read the message. It has two parts. One is a greeting from a friendly race. They call themselves the Yuver. They hail from far away; the star map is not familiar to my system,” W said, standing in the bridge’s entrance.
“I’ve never heard of them, Dean. I don’t think the Gatekeepers know of these Yuver. Dubs, tell them the rest of it.” Suma was excited, maybe nervous. The two were hard to differentiate with her at times.
“The main message was basically a greeting, an introduction stating their intentions of meeting new races and learning from them. They have samples of their art and music, not unlike what you tell me humans once pushed out from Earth,” W said.
I sensed there was more, and Suma’s pacing only fueled the assumption.
“There was something stitched onto the original communication. It was scattered, maybe rushed,” W said.
“What did they say?” Rulo asked, emerging from the hallway behind Dubs. She was dressed in her workout gear and wiped sweat from her head with a towel. Karo was with her, and he listened with interest.
“It was a warning. A call for help, perhaps, but a cautionary one.” W walked behind me and pointed to the console’s radar. “They said they were caught, trapped on this asteroid. Something was holding them there, but it’s unclear whether that meant a naturally-existing phenomenon or a physical being.”
“And there’s no way to timestamp this message or the original?” I asked.
“No, Captain. We have no idea how long ago the transmission was created. We only know it’s programmed on a loop to consistently send out to anyone close enough to receive it,” W said.
“I have to think there have been others passing through this system,” Slate said.
“Maybe, but not everyone will stop to assist a mayday call.” I watched the asteroids quickly growing in our viewscreen and tried to determine the right course of action.
“And fewer would have the ability to decode the message in the first place,” Karo added.
“Magnus didn’t come this way. I’d think they would have found the message intriguing enough to stop.” I tapped the arm of the chair, wishing the answer was simpler. It should be. Magnus needed us, but so could this race confined on an asteroid.
“Have you considered this could be a trap?” Rulo was behind Slate now, staring at the viewscreen with the rest of us.
“That’s what I like about you, Rulo. Always playing devil’s advocate,” Slate said, getting a smile from the Keppe woman.
“Someone has to. If I left you all to your own devices, we’d never stop assisting everyone blindly. I’m happy to be the cautionary voice,” Rulo said.
“You have a good point. W, what do you think?” I asked the robot.
“Captain, I don’t know how to sense pretense in their mathematical transmission. I do not believe we are being deceived, but that does not mean we aren’t. It could be a trap,” the robot said.
“Slate, Suma, Karo, what are your thoughts?” I wanted the entire team to weigh in before I made my final decision.
Suma went first, standing beside my chair. “Impossible to tell. I don’t think we’re being tricked. The last piece of the message seems too frantic, really worried.”
Slate nodded, silently agreeing with her. “Let’s move closer and take a look. If anything’s sending us the wrong vibe, we hightail out of there and keep going on our regularly scheduled mission.”
“I concur, Dean,” came Karo’s response.
I loved having the team sound off on the plan, and they’d basically suggested the exact course of action I was going ahead with; only now it was their idea, and I didn’t have to do anything. “Good plan, team. W, do you mind getting back in control of the ship?”
Slate moved away, and Dubs took his spot, directing us toward the asteroids. The second-largest one was our target, and it glowed green on our radar.
“No more details than some ominous message about being trapped?” I asked.
“There was one thing, but I’m not sure what it meant.” Dubs’ hands moved quickly on the console as he charted a path for our ship. We were getting close to the outer edge of the field, and already we could see big chunks of floating rock along our trajectory.
“What was it?” I asked, holding my breath for the answer.
“The last phrase said something about the ceiling. The context is unclear,” he said.
I shook my head slowly from side to side, trying to understand the meaning behind the warning.
Fourteen
The next forty or so minutes were tense, becoming more stressful the farther into the asteroid field we got. At the start, the rocky debris was far enough apart that we didn’t need to concern ourselves with moving away from one piece and having to avoid another. As we neared our target, the clusters of rocks grew closer together, and W had us on the edge of our seats as we zigged and zagged around them.
“Shields at ninety percent,” Slate said, having taken over the co-pilot’s seat. Two more rocks struck our side, and he amended his comment. “Eighty-five percent.”
However, we were almost there, and I could live with those numbers. We’d elected to not bother with a cover
t mission. While using the new cloaking device, we weren’t able to use the shields, so the choice had been a simple one.
The entire region was teeming with debris, but W managed to navigate us through relatively unscathed, and we lowered toward the round asteroid. In the viewscreen, it looked a lot like a roughly-shaped moon, slightly concave on the top, but mostly spherical. From this viewpoint, I counted three wide craters but couldn’t gauge how large they were.
Suma pointed to the largest of the three craters. “The transmission came from the center one.”
“It came from there?” I asked, and she shook her head.
“Now that we’re closer, I can see it originated from under the surface,” she said.
Since there was nothing above the slate-gray surface, that wasn’t a surprise. I wasn’t sure what wonders the underground of this asteroid held for us, but we were about to find out.
“Taking us down.” W directed our ship to face the asteroid, its broad image filling the entire viewscreen.
It was only a matter of minutes before we were lowering into the widest crater – which, it turned out, was over three kilometers wide, and at its lowest, four hundred meters below the rest of the rock’s exterior.
The ship settled to the ground on its landing gear, right next to a fault line, a crack in the crater rock.
“There is a minute amount of gravitational pull, but I’ll set the anchors into place, Captain,” W said as his metal hands sped across the console, giving it commands too fast for me to follow.
This was it. “Who’s coming below with me?”
Slate set a hand on my chest, stopping me from exiting the bridge. “Boss, maybe you should sit this one out. You and W can stay on board and be here for backup.”
I tried to stifle the laugh but wasn’t able to. “You have to be kidding me, Slate. Since when do I hang back on the ship while you all stick your necks out? If anyone should be staying, it’s Suma.”
“Why me?” she asked defiantly.
“Because your dad will kill me if anything happens to you. And Karo, you’re the last of your kind. I’d suggest you stay here with W and Suma,” I said firmly.
Karo seemed ready to argue with me, but he sat beside W instead. “Suma, let them have this one. You and I can continue with our plans for the rescue,” he said, and the Shimmali girl glared at me before nodding.
“Fine. This time. Keep in contact with us while you’re there, though,” she snipped.
“Let’s suit up.” I let Rulo lead the way through the hall to the cargo bay, where we slipped into our gear. Rulo’s was by far the largest, and her body armor EVA was impressive.
“I want to get one of those, boss.” Slate tapped it with his knuckles, earning him a glare from the Keppe warrior.
“I’ll see what I can do. You might fit one of our smaller molds.” Rulo smiled widely, and Slate took the intended insult with grace.
We each double-checked our suit’s sensors, ensuring we were properly sealed, and I made sure Slate’s and my video feeds were activated. It was something new we’d added so those aboard could watch with us and hopefully help if they spotted anything of use.
Minutes later, we were ready to exit the ship, but not before I did one last thing. I unlocked the crate that held the items from the Trader world. The portal Broker used had turned out to be less magical than I’d initially thought; she only waved her hand for the theatrics. I recorded my location into the device, and now we’d be able to return here with ease, should we encounter any trouble.
It was almost like having a functional Relocator, in some respects. This was more like the portal gate I had from Fontem’s collection, only a little less secretive. It only worked between close locations, usually on the same planet, so they were handy, yet extremely limited.
“All set?” I asked, and when Slate tapped his helmet and Rulo grabbed her minigun, I knew we were ready to go. We had an assortment of climbing gear and supplies with us, since we didn’t know what to expect.
The energy barrier turned on, and I lowered the Kraski ship’s ramp, where it settled on the dark, dusty ground with a floating cloud of dirt.
Suma watched us leave, and I gave her a confident wave, which she returned after a hesitant delay. I’d put her through enough, and if anything happened to us, I was certain her clever mind was going to be pivotal in tracking Magnus and Natalia down.
We’d landed the ship a few hundred meters from the crack in the crater, just in case the added weight caused a collapse. W was adamant that on an asteroid with next to no gravity, this wouldn’t be much of an issue, but I preferred to err on the side of caution.
Rulo took the ramp first, keeping her feet planted on the ground as she stepped off our ship. Our boots had an artificial mass dial on them, and we’d turned them to ninety percent before exiting our ship.
She waited for the two of us, and as I stood on the surface of the asteroid, I tried not to look up or anywhere but at my feet. Walking on a floating rock in the center of nowhere wasn’t my idea of a good time. Slate didn’t seem to care, and he marched quickly after Rulo. With a quick breath, I hurried after them. The only thing worse than hiking on an asteroid was doing it alone.
“Dean, it appears as though the crevasse leading into the asteroid is wider than initially expected. We could have fit the ship in if we were careful,” Suma said into my earpiece.
“I think it’s best we leave the ship where it is,” I replied.
“The drop isn’t far. We should be able to lock ourselves on here and make the jump,” Slate said, simultaneously grabbing a tool from a kit strapped to his suit. With it, he clamped a wide eye-hook into the stone, testing the tensile strength before clipping three ropes onto it. We each attached one to our own suit’s waist, and I peered over the edge of the opening.
It was pitch black inside. “I can’t believe we’re doing this, Slate. Didn’t we make a pact to stop going underground together?” I laughed nervously.
“That was on planets. We never specified asteroids,” Slate said, readying himself.
“You both talk too much,” Rulo said. She flipped on her armored suit’s built-in lighting system, directing the beams ahead, and stepped over the edge.
“Boss, you going to let her…” Slate started, but I didn’t make out the rest of his words as I walked over the ledge, falling inside the asteroid slowly. My momentum and the artificial mass generator carried me to the ground, and my lights caught movement below me. I swung my rifle around, only to find Rulo jumping out of the way so I didn’t land on her.
She pointed to my gun. “Watch where you’re waving that thing.”
“Woooohoooo!” Slate was shouting as he landed between us. “That was the coolest cave dive I’ve ever done.”
I tried finding my bearings. “Suma, you were right. This place is large enough for a ship.” I released a palm-sized light-drone, another item I’d obtained from the Traders. My heart raced as it found the abnormality in the cavern and stopped above it. I left the other two bragging to each other, and crossed the cavern. It was at least a kilometer deep, and the uncharacteristic ship sat halfway between us and the far edge.
“Is that what I think it is?” Suma asked from the ship. She was watching our feed from the bridge.
“I think we found the source of the transmission.” I turned to the others, who only now noticed that we weren’t alone. The light-drone stayed where it was, drawing the three of us like moths to a flame.
“This is amazing,” Rulo said. Her rowdy attitude was replaced with one of wonder.
“Do you recognize it?” I asked them, including the ones watching from my suit’s video feed.
“Nothing I have on file, Captain,” Dubs’ monotone voice said.
“I don’t recall seeing one of those in the Gatekeepers’ study material,” Suma said into my earpiece.
We got closer, and I saw the shape now. It was round, domed at the top, and had bumps along the outer edge. The light from above cast
lengthy shadows below it, making it look like it had long spiderlike legs. It was larger than our Kraski ship, but only by a small percentage. We arrived near it and stopped, waiting for a reaction from within the vessel.
“Whatever was inside has to be long gone, Dean,” Rulo said. “You heard W’s opinion on the age of the message. They must have come here and gotten stuck. Or they were damaged, looking for a place to land and repair.”
“We owe it to them to investigate who these Yuver are,” I said.
“Or were,” Slate chimed in.
Now that we were closer, it instantly made me picture an old UFO. It was shaped like the ones you’d see in countless television shows, hovering over crops, lights beaming cows up from the fields. The similarity caused the hairs on my arms to rise inside my suit.
“Does this remind you of something?” Slate asked me, and I nodded.
“Growing up in farm country, we had a few sightings while I was a kid. Old Bill Binders claimed he was abducted not once, but five times by a ship like this one. You don’t really think…” I cut myself off, giving my head a shake. I’d seen too much out there, been around too many aliens to think that the Yuver had been the ones stalking humans and probing them for an anatomy lesson.
“Probably not. But I’ll be ready for them either way.” Slate’s rifle came up, and we stalked around the round ship, looking for an entrance.
“What are you two going on about?” Rulo asked.
“Nothing. Just something from Earth folklore… or maybe reality. Suma, you see anything that might help?” I asked the girl watching the feed.
“There may have been a discoloration under the dome side. Check there,” she said, and I heeded her advice, heading under the ship. It had tall landing gear, allowing us to walk directly under it without hitting our heads on the underbelly.
I saw what she was talking about, and lifted a hand to the rough exterior of the alien vessel. When I didn’t feel anything, I sighed in frustration.
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